


Our Mrs Blackhill

by Peryton



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Aliens, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-02 15:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6572359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peryton/pseuds/Peryton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanoff and Maria Hill wake up after a night of celebrating their stay on an Alien base for a diplomacy assignment to find themselves married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We'd always hoped you two kids would get together

**Author's Note:**

> Title and some of the conversation (like three lines I think) is from Firefly. I thought ‘oh this might be a fun short idea’, then halfway into the second chapter I realised this is growing way beyond the 1/2k words I had expected, and maybe only I find it funny? But still, I have nearly finished second chapter now so may as well.

Maria groans, her head feels like a tiny gnome with a drum kit took up residence, invited all his gnome friends round and had a party and left without cleaning up any of the mess. Plus they left the drum kit and rigged something so the sticks would continuously pound the skins -and this simile has gone completely off course, yet another thing to blame on last night.

Maria drags herself up wincing at the throbbing in her head, swearing off drinking any alien liquor ever again, no matter if Simmons says it’s not harmful to humans. Her idea of not harmful is clearly skewed from breathing in all the toxic chemicals she has in the lab.

Maria carefully finds her way to the shower and attempts to clear away some of the fogginess of last night, once out of the bathroom she feels substantially more alert but still ready to murder whoever handed her that first drink last night.

Heading back into her room she stops and takes pause, this wasn’t the room she was designated when they first arrived at the Triumph settler’s main base. This is far nicer than her standard 10x10 room she and everyone else from the delegation from Earth was given.

Maria hopes whoever she stole the room from wasn’t from some other diplomatic group or high ranking Triumph official and they don’t know she was involved; it would be nice if she wasn’t the cause of a major diplomatic incident before breakfast.

Then she sees movement in the bed and she holds back a curse, if it hadn’t been that she had woken up in the same clothes she was in last night Maria might have thought she had slept with a stranger, but at least she knows that didn’t happen. Now she just has to get out of here before whatever important official who warranted a room this size with this level of furnishing realises she passed out in their quarters.

Maria starts slinking towards the door, focused on getting out of the room without being heard when a voice from the bed calls her.

At least they know my name, Maria thought, they must have invited me back here after the party. Maria looks over to the bed and the sight that greets her makes her roll her eyes. The Black Widow lying wrapped in multiple blankets looking extremely satisfied with herself.

“Were you trying to sneak out on me?” Natasha all but purrs from her position on the bed.

“I have work to do.” Maria replies stiffly.

“After last night? Don’t I at least deserve a kiss good morning?”

“Who are you trying to kid Romanoff, nothing happened last night.” Maria says, not in the mood for a verbal sparring match with the Black Widow this morning.

Natasha stretches and shrugs her shoulders in a way that can’t help but mesmerise Maria, she shakes her head annoyed at herself that she’s letting the Widow catch her off guard like this.

“You better get cleaned up too, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that this isn’t the room you were given when we arrived. It would be nice if we didn’t get kicked out for breaking into some Emperor of a Galaxy’s room.”

Natasha sits up in the bed, running her hands through her hair. The redhead must be in the same state as Maria, and is clearly shaken at waking up somewhere where she wasn’t expecting but she still looks better than Maria does on most days when she hasn’t been up drinking all night. That tousled just-got-out-of-bed hair and the amused glint in her eyes makes Maria’s mouth run dry. Of course that could just be the dehydration from the alcohol.

“You’re dressed!” Maria says as soon as Natasha exits the bed.

Natasha raises an eyebrow at her expectantly.

“Are you wishing I wasn’t?” The redhead asks coyly.

“No. You just implied we had, that, and you’re dressed.” Maria answers dumbly, cursing the alcohol for her less than eloquent response. “Just get ready and let’s get out of here.”

“I’m ready.” Natasha shrugs again and Maria has to stop herself from letting her eyes follow the graceful play of muscles shown above the redhead’s top. “Unless you want me to shower so you can see what you missed last night?”

Maria rolls her eyes and moves towards the door.

“Come on then, the sooner we’re out of here the better.” Maria says as she cautiously opens the door and checks the corridor before exiting and gesturing for Natasha to follow her.

Maria thinks they’re home free, and breathes a sigh of relief as she and Natasha walk down the empty corridor towards where their rooms are located when they bump into one of the Triumph base’s crew she dimly remembers meeting before the drinking truly started last night.

Maria braces for the recriminations and questions that are sure to follow but acting wing lieutenant of the Gunstar and the Little D.R. ScreeWee –Maria hears the titles automatically in her head as she recalls the alien’s name, ingrained into her brain due to the amount of times they were said to her before ScreeWee spoke.

However, to her surprise ScreeWee doesn’t seem at all concerned that he’s found the two of them so far away from their quarters.

“Oh you are awake! How are the happy couple!?” ScreeWee asks smiling brightly in Maria’s direction, something that was slightly off putting given his species similarity to a crocodile.

Maria looks around behind her and doesn’t see anyone other than Natasha in the corridor.

“Erm. Us?”

“Of course! And just so you know the Elder Gommen has informed me that you two will have use of the, how do you humans put it… something about bees and lunar cycles…” ScreeWee trailed off and Maria exchanged worried glances with Natasha.

“We were just on our way back to our rooms.” Natasha said, moving cautiously past the still smiling alien.

“To collect your belongings?” ScreeWee asked confused.

Maria can’t help but let out a curse this time, they’d actually been kicked out because she and Natasha slept in someone’s quarters, oh Fury was just going to love this.

“Why would we collect our belongings again?” Natasha asked carefully.

“To put them into your new suite. As I was about to tell you, this room is now yours and your wife’s for the duration of your visit to us. I know you are due back to your homeworld soon but we hope you find it pleasing for the remaining time you have with us.” ScreeWee’s grin widens to impossibly gleeful levels.

Maria can’t find it in herself to return his smile, or to speak, or breathe for that matter. Natasha recognises her distress and pulls Maria by the arm past ScreeWee.

“Well that’s great; we’ll just go get our stuff then.” Natasha calls over her shoulder as she propels Maria down the corridor.

“Ah young love.” ScreeWee sighs happily, clutching his claws to his scaly chest as he watches them leave.

* * *

Maria and Natasha quickly find their way back to their original quarters and go into the living space connected to their rooms to find a dishevelled looking Coulson and a stoic but seemingly slightly fragile agent Melinda May, along with Skye who is eagerly downing what smells like coffee. Gods Maria hopes it’s coffee.

“And so the wanderers return.” Agent May says dryly.

“They think we’re married.” Maria blurts out, watching Coulson’s eyes go wide at her outburst and Melinda’s knowing smirk.

“They put us in the honeymoon suite.” Natasha adds.

“The honey…?” Maria asks turning to Natasha before realising. “Oh.”

“I did wonder about that.” Melinda says contemplatively. “Everyone did seem very interested in getting you two together.”

“Well why wouldn’t they?” Skye pipes up from behind her oversized coffee mug. “A couple of bad ass super-agent women together? I ship it.”

Maria stares at Skye who due to either her own less than alert state or Maria’s tiredness doesn’t notice the glare that usually has agents scrambling for cover.

Maria gives up on cowing Skye who is staring at them happily and has now moved on to trying out portmanteaus of their names in between sips of coffee.

“How drunk was I last night?” Maria asks Natasha quietly, choosing to ignore Skye’s enthusiastic approval and instead focusing on how May doesn’t seem surprised by this development.

“You were an adorable level of drunk, you started telling everyone dirty knock knock jokes and you wore a floral garland in your hair. I however remained dignified in the face of an alien race. Someone had to uphold the honour of SHIELD after all.”

“You did not, I saw you wearing the flowery crown thing too!” Maria exclaimed annoyed.

“Okay, I had a few drinks, and I partook of the local customs, to make them feel like I had assimilated, these are the things they train you for you know Hill.” Natasha said teasingly. “But I was nowhere near as drunk as you were.”

“So we didn’t get married then?”

“We didn’t.” Natasha confirms.

“Actually you did.” Coulson says returning from his room with a tablet in his hand. “A copy on the marital practices of the Triumph settlers: A marriage is conducted by one half of the couple placing a living representation of life and their love upon the head of their intended-”

“You. You gave me the flower thing.” Maria growls at Natasha.

“Hey people were handing them out! We had to blend.” Natasha replies placatingly. “Wait, I saw loads of people wearing those things last night, just how many marriages were there?”

“Just you two,” Coulson said, still reading from his tablet. “The crowns symbolise willingness to bind your lives together, then the couple must show their compatibility in a display of synchronisation.”

“Well when did we-” Maria starts to ask before Natasha cuts her off.

“That was you! You came up to me and begged me to dance. You said I had those years of ballet I should be able to put them to use.”

“Then the two engage in public displays of affection and that seals their union.” Coulson ends looking up from his tablet, his solemn expression at odds with Skye’s excited look.

“Public displays of affection huh?” Natasha asks Maria grinning salaciously.

“Keep it in your pants Romanoff, you two just sat and giggled together all night.” Melinda says trying to hide a smile behind her usual professional mask.

Maria stares at Natasha in growing horror, this was real, they had actually got married.

“Aw you guys!” Skye claps her hands together gleefully. “Simmons is gonna be _so_ annoyed she missed this, I told her to stick around last night but after she realised the alcohol was a low level hallucinogen she didn’t want to drink much.”

“It was a what?” Coulson asked alarmed.

“Don’t worry.” Skye said airily, “It won’t harm us, it just means that the drinks would have affected us more than we would have expected.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Maria said dismally.

“Well this is quite the event.” Agent May says smiling at the two of them. “Romanoff you’ll have to let me know if you want a belated bachelorette party back on Earth, if your wife allows it of course.”

“Oh I’m sure Maria won’t be the kind of partner who keeps me under lock and key, not once the honeymoon period is over anyway. Hey, sweetie?” Natasha says nudging Maria’s arm and trading grins with Melinda.

“Well it’s not like this counts beyond this planetary system right?” Maria asks hopefully.

“Actually considering we’re here to extend Earth’s acceptance of them into a mutual alliance that’s exactly what it means.” Coulson says, causing Maria’s already delicate stomach to turn over uncomfortably.

“Well, what does it say in there about divorce?” Maria asks Coulson.

“You want to divorce me?” Natasha asks outraged.

"What? I mean, I... We- you're fucking with me aren't you Romanoff?" Maria says flatly, watching Natasha’s expression of outrage and hurt turn into a smirk.

“Of course, Hill. But we have to be careful not to step on anyone’s toes with this, how will it look if we marry and then divorce within hours?”

“That won’t be an issue.” Coulson says.

“Really? Oh thank god.” Maria breathes a sigh of relief.

“Because you can’t get divorced within a few hours.” Coulson continues as if Maria hadn’t spoken.

“What?” Maria cries out in distress.

“The matter of divorce for the Triumph settlers is more… proactive.

“What does that mean?” Natasha asks carefully.

“Just as the act of getting married was the two of you displaying your intent and performing the ceremony, as it was, alone, you have to undertake a number of tasks to prove that both of you want this ended and that you are of sound mind to do so. Also the tasks will likely take a while to complete, presumably for beings to decide whether they really want to divorce.” Coulson says, frowning at the tablet in his hands.

“Well how do we find out what tasks we need to do?”

“You’ll need to have a representative, someone present at the wedding who can petition to the council on your behalf, and they will let you know what tasks you have to undertake to get this… cleared up.” Coulson says awkwardly.

“We’re due home in under forty-eight hours how are we going to get this sorted out before then?” Maria asks her voice taking on a frantic edge.

“Relax, find someone who was there last night-which won’t be hard considering the amount of beings who I saw spiking the punch and ask them to keep in touch while the council of Elders decide what you need to do.” Coulson says wincing at the mention of the spiked punch.

“ScreeWee.” Maria says looking at Natasha for affirmation.

“Are you sure?” Natasha asks, “He would probably help Skye out with naming our future children.”

“I want to try and keep this whole thing as discrete as possible.” Maria answered determinedly.

“Fine, you ask him though. I don’t want to be around when his little toothy grin becomes less grin more tooth.”

“I thought you were the bad ass Black Widow, you’re scared of an acting wing lieutenant?” Maria asks cocking an eyebrow at the redhead.

“Yeah Romanoff, don’t send your wife off into battle alone.” Melinda helpfully adds from the side-lines.

Natasha sighs and rolls her eyes at May but she joins Maria on the hunt to track down and explain the situation to ScreeWee, who doesn’t seem to understand the situation at all at first. He keeps shooting concerned looks at Natasha and honestly, just how affectionate were their public displays last night if a stranger thinks they’re practically soulmates?

Luckily Natasha draws him to the side and seems to manage to explain in a way that ScreeWee comprehends. Maria is slightly concerned at the pitying looks he gives her but he’s promised to approach the council and to call them on Earth with the details of what they need to do, which is all they could ask for at this point.

The remaining hours on the Triumph settler’s base pass without incident and before long they’re all strapped in the transporter ready to get back to Earth. Thankfully with the jumps in technology SHIELDs current endeavour at intergalactic diplomacy is bringing the flight home is barely longer than it would take to fly around the Earth on a commercial flight.

Once back on Earth Maria avoids Natasha’s attempts to catch her eye and leaves the drop site on a quest for her own bed, hoping a rest somewhere familiar will make the horrors of this trip fade in memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, points if people can guess the reference each of the trials is from. and the sentence in chapter 1 when Maria & Natasha are discovered first coming out the honeymoon suite where I cram in three references. And you know what points mean: nothing. nothing at all. (However come the revolution they will be redeemable at all good book stores so hold on to them.)
> 
> I like when I spot references in things, but rarely do so this was mainly an excuse to put in references I would have enjoyed.


	2. Philosopher's Puzzle

Maria knew Natasha had returned from her last mission four hours ago, she thought she had given the spy enough time to give her report and head back to her own quarters to decompress but JARVIS had informed her after she spent ten minutes waiting outside the assassin’s door that she wasn’t in her own rooms, instead she was in the shared living space in the Tower. Maria scowled; trust Romanoff to want company after a mission the day she had received a holocall from Triumph about their… god Maria couldn’t even think the word without blanching.

Maria strode off towards the main living area hoping that her frustration wouldn’t be too obvious once she found Natasha. Fortunately there was only Steve in the room Maria finally found Natasha in, the Captain was sitting on a sofa catching up some other cult classic he had missed while being on ice and would likely not listen in to any of their conversation if he thought it was private.

Maria exchanged nods with Steve and went over to the counter where the redhead was heating up food.

“SHIELD had a holocall from Triumph while you were out.” Maria said quietly.

“Oh?” Natasha doesn’t make any attempt to move anywhere private with Maria, so much for keeping this ridiculous accidental marriage a secret from the rest of the Tower.

“Yeah… ScreeWee has been in touch with the Elders and they’ve given us the first task.” Maria says nonchalantly hoping to avoid anyone who doesn’t already know asking for more information about-

“What tasks?” Darcy asks immediately, popping up from behind the counter. Maria wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been there all day, waiting for her unerring sixth sense for gossip to ping.

“Maria and I need to do a trial separation.” Natasha says to Darcy, watching Maria from out the corner of her eye.

Maria glares at Natasha who just smiles genially in response.

“By which I mean a number of trials in order for us to be separated.” Natasha says turning to Darcy who looks like all her Christmasses have come at once. “It seems Agent Hill just can’t stand to be Mrs Romanoff.” Natasha sighs woundedly.

“Wait, what happened on Triumph?” Steve asks confused.

“Oh you told them?” Skye says as she walks in to the living area. “You told me you’d send me to Antarctica if I ever mentioned it!”

“And I still will.” Maria growls at the hacker who looks unperturbed.

“So what’s the task?” Natasha asks calmly, ignoring Steve’s confused expression.

“Some sort of logic puzzle. Darcy what are you-”

“You two are _married?!_ ” Tony exclaims as he flies up through the private elevator shaft with just the hand thrusters of his Iron Man suit attached.

“Did you put on half your suit just so you could come up here and ask us about this?” Maria asks exasperated.

“So tell me everything! How was the ceremony? Skye did you get any pictures?” Tony asks ignoring Maria.

“I’d take that as a ‘yes’.” Natasha murmurs in Maria’s ear as she moves to sit down on the sofa, patting a still confused looking Steve on the knee.

Maria tries to ignore the fluster Natasha’s proximity caused in her and turns to the new problem in her attempt to keep the incident on Triumph on a need-to-know basis. If Darcy was bad for keeping secrets Tony, who was slightly harder to intimidate or bribe with cupcakes was ten times worse.

“Tony wh- how did you even find out so fast?” Maria asks amazed.

“Darcy.” Tony says gesturing at the astrophysics intern who is currently edging around the counter in an attempt to put more space between her and Maria’s death glare. “Hey, I’d have found out sooner or later. Now, who has pictures?”

“Sadly there aren’t any, we were all too drunk to record anything. Not that we really knew what was happening at the time…” Skye says sounding genuinely disappointed about the lack of photographic evidence of their disastrous night at the Triumph base.

“I’m leaving. Romanoff when you want to know how to get out of this mess you got us in come and find me.”

“Oh, you proposed Nat? I’m not surprised. Hill is way too reticent to pop the question.” Tony says seriously.

“I assure you it was completely mutual.” Natasha quips.

Maria glares for one last time at Darcy who looks suitably cowed but Maria knows by now that’s just an act on her part to avoid any actual disciplinary action and leaves the room, Tony’s laughter following her down the corridor.

“They were wearing flower crowns and dancing?! Man why did I miss this!” Tony’s voice carries

Maria sighs and heads to her office, at least everyone there is too scared of her to ask for any details on what happened on the diplomatic mission beyond what she already filed in her report. Maybe she could find a sympathetic ear from Coulson about the immaturity of the rest of the people living in the Tower.

* * *

“So what’s the task?” Natasha’s voice jolts Maria from the reports she was reading and she raises her head to find the redhead lounging in a chair in her office looking pleased with herself.

“Have fun telling the kids all about what happened did you?” Maria says bitingly, annoyed with the easiness Natasha seems to be handling everything with.

“Maria, this happened and if you want to reverse it as soon as possible that’s fine. But trying to pretend it’s a big secret isn’t going to work out for you, this is SHIELD after all, headquarters of the best spies and secret agents and hackers there are. As much as we might like them to be there are no secrets here.” Natasha says levelly.

“What kind of secrets would you want to keep?” Maria asks, taking the Black Widow’s relaxed persona in with interest.

Natasha shrugs, “We all have something we’d like to keep to ourselves. Knowledge we don’t want other people to have over us.”

“Well sure. Spy stuff.” Maria says awkwardly, embarrassed that while she’s been concerned with worrying over what people will think about hearing she and the Black Widow effectively had a drunken Vegas marriage –albeit on an intergalactic Avenger’s level- Natasha is talking about the consequences of major secrets getting out.

“Yeah. Spy stuff.” Natasha replies, seeming noticeably tenser than she did when she began the conversation and avoiding Maria’s curious gaze by looking down at the paperwork on Maria’s desk.

“So anyway,” Maria starts, keen to move the conversation along from secret keeping. “ScreeWee said the first task can be set up in the Tower, so we don’t have to travel back to Triumph or anywhere to fulfil it.”

“Will we have to travel in space for some of these tasks?” Natasha asks frowning.

“Maybe. This one at least we don’t have to go very far, something about a riddle and we need to work out the correct answer to pass.”

“That doesn’t seem too bad; I assume one doesn’t become the deputy director of SHIELD without having a little logic.” Natasha smiles teasingly at Maria who returns it half-heartedly.

“Actually I might argue that logic is something most government organisations try to weed out early on.” Maria says wryly.

“Well don’t worry Hill; it’s against Romanoff pride to lead a spouse into danger and not bring them out safe and well.”

“I’m beginning to think you like being able to call me your spouse far too much Romanoff.” Maria said with a raised eyebrow, expecting a snarky rebuttal from the Black Widow but the redhead just smiled and waited for Maria to fill her in on the location of the task.

* * *

“I suppose we can’t ask Thor for any help with this? Put in a good word for us with the council of Elders back on Triumph or something?” Maria asks Coulson, attempting to do something to fix the situation while she was stuck waiting for JARVIS to finish the preparations for the first task in one of Tony’s more secure R&D labs.

“Thor’s in Asgard, and even if the Asgardians had sway over the Triumph settlers, which we don’t know that they do, we can’t just call on him for every little thing.”

Maria quietly seethes at this being referred to as a ‘little thing’ but nods her head in agreement all the same.

“Don’t worry, you two are pros, and didn’t the lizard thing tell you the first one was a piece of cake?” Coulson said, eyeing Maria as if she was a new rookie on an op.

“He’s not a lizard, his race have no genetic similarity to reptiles on our world it’s just convergent evolution.” Maria replies automatically, looking up to see Coulson’s expectant gaze. Maria groans. “I know what you’re doing and it’s not working.”

“No?” Coulson smiles knowingly. “But you feel better now you’ve informed me about the origins of the ScreeWee don’t you?”

“His name’s ScreeWee it’s not- oh shut up.” Maria says to Coulson’s ill-concealed mirthful gaze.

Before long Maria is waiting anxiously for Natasha at the door, her talk with Coulson had done little to calm her nerves, it’s not like she hadn’t been involved in high risk operations before, in fact most of her current workload was a damn sight more dangerous and had higher risks than this current endeavour so why was this the thing that was making her stomach flip like she was back in the academy?

Maria caught a glimpse of Natasha moving down the corridor towards her and felt her heart flutter in relief at the sight of the redhead.

“Everything okay Hill?” Natasha asked her green eyes staring into her own and piercing past Maria’s usual defences.

“Yeah, just want to get this over with.”

Natasha nods understandingly but her eyes hold Maria’s for a few moments longer and Maria can’t bring herself to look away.

“Well, after you.” Natasha smiles and gestures to the still closed door in front of them.

Maria opened the door cautiously but seeing nothing in the sparse room save for a table in the centre with seven vials of liquid laid out with a note she strode in with the confidence of an experienced veteran returning to battle.

“This is… not what I was expecting at all.” Natasha says glancing at the bottles and the paper with the riddle written on.

Maria looked behind her in time to see the door swing shut and a film of translucent what looked like liquid glide over the top, effectively sealing the two of them inside the room.

Maria glanced over at Natasha accusingly but the redhead simply rolled her eyes, “Relax, this says that all we have to do is identify the correct vial to drink from and we’ll be able to go back through the door.”

“It says here three are poison, are they actually making these tasks deadly?” Maria asked disbelief colouring her voice.

“They must take marriage _really_ seriously on Triumph. Hey don’t worry we just need to think about this logically, like ScreeWee said.”

“I think I’d rather fight a troll at this point.” Maria said staring at the bottles gloomily.

Natasha said nothing and looked intently at the riddle laid before them.

“However slyly the poison tries to hide you will always find some on nettle wine's left side…” Natasha murmured to herself thoughtfully, staring at the display of bottles before them. _“_ The second left and the second on the right are twins once you taste them.”

Maria watched the redhead puzzle out the riddle with barely concealed interest, the brunette took great pleasure in watching the redhead’s usually wrinkle free forehead crease in concentration and found herself wishing that Natasha had reading glasses.

“These two.” Natasha said after a few moments consideration, gesturing to the third and last potions.

“Are you sure?” Maria asked sceptically, trying to push away her ill-timed thoughts about calling in optometrists and forcing all the Avengers to get tested in the hopes Romanoff would try a few pairs on for her.

“You’re welcome to come to your own results independently if you wish.” Maria looked at the proffered vials doubtfully. “Oh for-” Natasha downed one and raised an eyebrow in challenge at Maria who wasn’t about to back down from this, or remain stuck in the lab indefinitely and drank the bitter liquid.

Natasha grasped Maria’s hand and the two walked towards the barrier across the door.

“You got it right.” Maria said as the two of them walked from the lab unscathed, the surprise evident in her tone.

“What, did you think my job was just shooting people?” Natasha asks raising an eyebrow. “I’m hurt Hill, really. It’s almost as if you don’t read my reports.”

“It’s almost as if you and Barton flip a coin to determine who’s near illegible scrawl I get to decipher each time you go out.”

“It’s not my fault you stuck me with someone who grew up on a carnie. You know what he’s like, never happy unless he’s playing with his arrows. Maybe he’ll come up with a pen-arrow, can’t be as bad as his boomerang arrow or the one with a boxing glove attached.”

“God can’t you be serious for once?” Maria said exasperated.

Natasha looked at her, confusion barely showing past the mask that was now firmly in place, but Maria had been around the spy enough times now that she could catch a few glimpses beyond the usual Black Widow armour.

“This is what we do though, right?” Natasha said carefully.

“What? Annoy each other?”

Natasha stared at Maria for a few moments then turned to leave.

“Natasha?” Maria called after the retreating redhead uncertainly, but Natasha ignored her and walked out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, points if people can guess the reference each of the trials is from. and the sentence in chapter 1 when Maria & Natasha are discovered first coming out the honeymoon suite where I cram in three references. And you know what points mean: nothing. nothing at all. (However come the revolution they will be redeemable at all good book stores so hold on to them.)
> 
> I like when I spot references in things, but rarely do so this was mainly an excuse to put in references I would have enjoyed.


	3. African or European?

Maria hadn’t seen Natasha at all in the past week; she would have thought the spy was avoiding her except that was ridiculous, what reason would she have to avoid her?

“Ah, there she is, our Mrs Blackhill.” Clint said as he sauntered into the break room to get coffee and likely to snag the new batch of blueberry muffins someone had left.

Maria groaned. “Is that the one Skye settled on?”

“It was a collaboration effort.” The archer said grinning as he predictably grabbed two muffins then looked like he was contemplating making a makeshift basket from his shirt to carry more away to his current ‘nest’.

“What was the first task like?” Clint asked while Maria busied herself with the coffee machine.

“Fine.”

“Yeah, Nat’s pretty good at logic puzzles.” Clint said nonchalantly as he balanced a pile of muffins on top of his coffee.

“Yeah, she is.” Maria said softly, her thoughts drifting back to the redhead’s noticeable absence.

When Maria turned around she saw Clint sporting a knowing smirk that only increases when he notices Maria’s eyes on him, the brunette narrows her eyes but the archer slinks away before she can question him further.

Maria shakes her head and settles down to wait for the next crisis to hit, at least there was that to be said for working at SHIELD, it was never boring. And this time it would have the added benefit of taking up all her attention so she wouldn’t have to think about what Barton knows, or thinks he knows. And it would stop her thoughts from continually drifting back to the absent redhead.

* * *

The crisis came, as Maria knew it would, but not the kind Maria was expecting.

“We’ve got a road trip.” Natasha said shocking Maria into wakefulness and throwing a pillow at Maria’s still sleep addled head.

“What?” Maria asked blearily, sitting up from her bed.

“Task number two Maria, get this one out the way and we’ll be on the home stretch.”

“How did you get into my room?” Maria asked, finally realising just where Natasha had chosen to tell her this message.

“Spy, remember?” Natasha said smirking. “Now come on, ScreeWee called, we have a quest.”

“A quest? Sounds vaguely Arthurian.”

“Yeah well I get the feeling the Triumph settlers are all about going back to basics, intergalactic space travel notwithstanding.” Natasha said, gazing openly at Maria who was in the middle of getting out of the bed. “Nice pyjamas by the way.”

“I don’t wear… Out.”

Maria could hear Natasha chuckling as she left her room and went to wait in the kitchen area of her living quarters.

“They’re the knights of… well just call them the Knights,” The holorecording of ScreeWee said to the two of them once Maria had dressed. “They have a quest for you.”

“Was this all he said to you?” Maria asked, staring at the now quiet recorder.

“No, he said the coordinates are in a ‘copter and once we get there we won’t have far to go before we find the Knights.”

* * *

Maria gazed at the Black Widow in her natural setting, well, this was probably more to Clint’s than Natasha’s. Neither of them had known exactly what they were heading in to which meant both were in their own variant of tactical suit complete with weapons, it just so happened Natasha’s suit was much more… well. Yeah, maybe it was best to stop that line of thought now Maria mused to herself, the woman has already broken into your bedroom you don’t want to add into that something that’s only going to complicate matters.

Maria looked up at the forest around them, ScreeWee was right about them finding the Knights quickly at any rate, it wasn’t long into their walk from the helicopter that they had spotted the strangely well-tended shrubbery garden, Maria had known enough about botany to know they weren’t local, and that there were many different varieties grouped together and what once had probably been the Knight’s small shrubbery garden had grown exponentially.  

Plus the artificially made multiple levels, with little paths meandering through them and a tiny bridge over an ornamental stream helped with that not at all giant leap of logic. Maria shakes her head; this just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Before long Maria and Natasha found a clearing with a group of tall humanoid beings-well, as far as Maria could deduce under their cloaks and helmets.

“Greetings weary travellers.” The first of the tall beings said, his head completely covered by a large medieval helmet. “We are the knights-”

“The Knights.” Another tall being cut in quickly.

“Yes, yes the Knights.” The first voice continued annoyed. “Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted.” The knight swivelled suddenly presumably to glare at his companion who had interrupted him but as his face was completely covered by his helmet no one could really tell what he was trying to do. “There’s a quest. Find the Grail.” The Knight finished grumpily.

“What kind of Grail?” Maria asked.

“A Grail! Honestly, you try and instil a little showmanship into the world and this is what they give you.” The Knight who had given them the quest muttered to himself as he walked off. Leaving Maria and Natasha looking at each other with bemused expressions.

“Is this some sort of joke they’re all in on?” Maria asked as they spotted a crude sign claiming ‘Grail this way’ pointing up a hill.

“Well that guy over there is doing equations of the airspeed velocity of swallows so your guess is as good as mine.”

“African or European?” Maria asked curiously.

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not. So we just follow these signs pick up the Grail and bring it back? What kind of pointless task is this?”

“Hey don’t complain, if this is just is a brief interlude away from the Avengers Tower I’ll take a bit of weird traipsing around in forests with you over watching Skye try and hack JARVIS or Steve asking questions about social media.” Natasha said grinning at Maria.

The two followed the signs helpfully pointing out the location of the Grail for a while before Maria started to get nervous.

“What if this is a trap?”

“I think you’re giving ScreeWee and his ability to create a sophisticated task on a different planet too much credit.” Natasha said wryly as she cautiously prodded one of the flagstones along the path labelled ‘trap’ to watch a small explosion weakly splutter and then emit dark smoke.

Natasha raises her eyebrows to emphasise her comment.

“Point.” Maria said, shaking her head. “Hey, wait. I think I hear hoof beats.”

Maria pulls on Natasha’s arm and the two stop walking and listened intently for a few moments.

“Doesn’t sound much like a horse to me, sounds like someone’s banging two halves of a coconut together in a low budget imitation of a horse’s trot.”

Natasha tensed and moved slightly in front of Maria as a group of people wearing chainmail followed by grubby men clacking together halves of a coconut emerged through the trees. Maria realised her hand was still on Natasha’s arm and quickly dropped it. Natasha glanced back at Maria and Maria saw the redhead’s eyes linger on the offending hand for a few seconds before snapping back to the group of strangers before them.  

The leader reigned in his imaginary horse and bowed his head in their direction.

“Greetings travellers, what brings you to these woods?”

“We’re, ah, I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Maria murmured to herself before moving closer to the chainmail clad group and people holding coconut shells. “Looking for a Grail?”

“Oh what a fortuitous meeting, we just so happen to have a Grail we found not two leagues from here.”

“Yes, what a coincidence.” Natasha muttered to Maria.

“You may take the Grail fair maiden.” The leader said to Maria, Natasha scoffs at that and Maria glares at her. “If you can answer me these questions three. What is your name?”

“Natasha Romanoff.” Natasha replied easily, coming to stand level with Maria.

“What do you seek?”

“The Grail?” Natasha said slowly, exchanging glances with Maria.

What is her favourite colour?” The questioner asked, indicating Maria.

“Do I tell you after she answers which my favourite colour is?” Maria asked sceptically but Natasha was already answering.

“Green.”

“That… actually is my favourite colour.”

“I know.” Natasha said, grinning slyly at the brunette.

“Congratulations fair maidens, you have earned your reward.” The Grail was passed to Maria and the group promptly rode off, or pretended to ride off at any rate.

“Do you get the feeling this whole thing was completely pointless?” Maria asked staring at the Grail in her hands.

Natasha just shook her head and looked at the Grail in confusion, then her gaze slipped up to meet Maria’s eyes, causing Maria to swallow nervously when faced with the deep green she saw there.

* * *

Once back at SHIELD and sharing the tale of what happened with the members of the team who are gathered in the common area Maria thinks back to the task they’ve just completed, and the first one Natasha pretty much single-handedly solved, and realises that she hasn’t ever had this level of synchronicity with anyone else she’s worked with before. It’s probably down to how much of a professional the Black Widow is, no doubt she’s read all the files on everyone at SHIELD she could find and knows all about Maria’s preferred methods and adjusted her actions accordingly, but still it has made these last few missions much more simple than they could have been if she was partnered with anyone else.

Maria looks over at Natasha who’s gesturing wildly and is impersonating one of the Knights and the brunette feels a twinge of sadness that there’s only one more task to complete and she won’t have any other excuses to be with Natasha so much.

Although that may not be such a problem as since the second task Maria finds herself bumping into Natasha more and more, they find themselves together in the shared common area of the tower with increasing frequency. And after Natasha bought her lunch to her office during an incredibly hectic day, correctly guessing that Maria would have skipped it otherwise, they’ve fallen into a habit of eating their lunches together at SHIELD whenever Natasha isn’t off on an op. So it’s not like she’ll miss out on seeing Romanoff altogether Maria muses, just their time undertaking a strange alien ordered scavenger hunt will be at a close once they get everything finished and back to how it was before. Maria doesn’t know why this fails to lift her spirits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah this task is maybe just an excuse for me to cram references in… but I think the next one will have some action. And something that actually happens (hopefully)


	4. insert cliffhanger here

Maria looked over at the redhead sitting next to her. Natasha raised an eyebrow in question but Maria just grinned and continued drinking her glass of wine.

“Not long before all this is over now.” Natasha said sighing almost wistfully.

“I know, I can’t wait.”

“Not all of it has to end though right?”

“What you want to come up with alien quests or something for us to do together now?”

“No, I mean we can hang out together. Like this.” Natasha says gesturing to the now severely depleted wine bottle between them. “Although maybe with more alcohol next time. Made from something stronger than grapes.”

Maria rolled her eyes at the alcohol comment but couldn’t deny that she had enjoyed the newfound understanding between the two of them since the tasks started.

“Sure, I mean, we’re friends now?”

“Wow, you say that with such certainty Hill.” Maria rolls her eyes at that but it doesn’t stop Natasha from continuing with a sly grin. “I will miss catching you in your sleepwear.”

The next day Maria receives a call from ScreeWee with the last task, she rushes to find Natasha whose face falls imperceptibly once Maria informs her why she’s come to see her but Maria figures that’s because this is the last task, and it will likely be more difficult than the previous ones. Maria has already asked ScreeWee what happens if they were to fail any of the assignments they were given but he had just been silent for long enough that Maria suspected there was a fault with the holophone and then helpfully said that they wouldn’t.

For this task Maria and Natasha are being strapped into one of Tony’s experimental hyperdrive transportation pods, one of his side projects that fell by the wayside once SHIELD started building a rapport with alien species who didn’t want to destroy the Earth and he decided it was more time effective to just fix what he deemed wrong with their hyperdrive machines.

Once they’re inside Tony flicks one of the switches and the pod starts humming disconcertingly.

“We’re not actually travelling anywhere in these things are we?” Natasha asked.

“Trust me these are perfectly safe for what you need them for.” Tony said concentrating on the readouts of the machines for a moment before looking satisfied with what his inventions are doing.

“That didn’t really answer my question.”

“ScreeWee told me everything, and he was very clear what you two were allowed to know.” Tony said looking smugly at the two women in the pod.

Maria rolls her eyes. “And JARVIS made sure you were doing everything correctly and not ‘improving’ anything right?”

“Yes.” Tony replied scowling. “Right. That’s it. You two kids are ready to go get un-married. Now are you sure I can’t convince you to reconsider? It’s not as if you even have to stay monogamous if you don’t want to, think of the PR we could get if you were Mrs and Mrs, we could make our own Avengers dating show!”

“No.” Maria said firmly.

“No to the dating show or staying married?”

“Just do whatever you have to do to get this going.” Maria replied impatiently.

“Fine, fine. For the record I was going to get you two a great honeymoon, I have my own private island you wouldn’t believe the views.”

“Well we _are_ married; can’t we still get the honeymoon?” Natasha asked.

“Nope sorry, Stark honeymoons are only for the real deal, none of your fakery here.” Tony said as he stepped back from the pods.

The pod doors closed down over them and Maria can’t hear the rest of Tony’s response, she looked over at Natasha who is examining the illuminated buttons and dials along the console.

Maria just hears Tony’s muffled curses before the pods start to shake and fumes leak into their cabin space. Natasha is out of her seat and trying to open up the pod doors and Maria looks around for oxygen masks but before she manages to find anything she can use the fumes in the pod overwhelm her.

* * *

Maria comes round to find herself staring at Natasha’s ass. As soon as Maria regains her faculties enough to realise what it is she’s staring at she jerks away automatically, not taking into consideration the fact that Natasha is currently carrying her body over her shoulder and Maria’s sudden movement causes both of them to slide down the embankment along the side of the road Natasha seemed to be following.

“You’re finally awake then.” Natasha says once she brushes herself down from the plant debris they collected on their tumble along the ground.

“What happened?” Maria asked looking around at the unfamiliar landscape.

“Not sure, I came to and the pod doors were cracked open, I didn’t know where we were so after grabbing everything useful, which wasn’t much, I started along the first road I could find in the hopes of working out where we are.”

“Well, thanks for carrying me.”

“Not a problem, you were one of the useful things in that pod after all.” Natasha said

“Another day at SHIELD huh?” Maria asked “Does anything look familiar to you? You’ve not passed any landmarks or anything?”

“No. And I hate to break it to you but I don’t recognise this flora either, and I’ve been to most places on Earth.”

“Great. So we’re not on Earth.” Maria sighed. “That’s just great. I thought Tony promised us these pods weren’t taking us offworld?”

“Actually he said they were safe for what we need them for.” Natasha said darkly.

“Which they clearly aren’t.” Maria said gesturing to their beaten up flight suits and the light scratches she can see on both her and Natasha’s skin from the crash. “Unless we were supposed to get shipwrecked- oh. Oh, I am going to kill ScreeWee. How is this a suitable task, we don’t even know what planet we’re on!”

“Hopefully we won’t be wondering for long.” Natasha said nodding towards a plume of smoke rising from behind an unfamiliar treeline. “Just out of interest how much ammo did you bring with you?”

“Not enough.” Maria said grimly.

Natasha nodded in silent agreement and the two moved towards the smoke, keeping off the road as much as they could. As they neared their destination they realised the smoke was from a large domed building, the two women kept close to cover as they approached it and Natasha pulled Maria down next to a rocky outcrop when they came in sight of the entrance.

“What’s the plan here, are we going to try and sneak in and work out if they’re friendly or where we are, or are we going to hope these guys are friendly?” Natasha asked, continually scanning the building in front of her.

“Well if it’s sneaking in we’ll have to decide fast because I think our best bet would be to get in while that convoy is entering.” Maria said indicating the line of vehicles that were fast approaching. “There aren’t any vehicles around the base so they must have a large parking lot inside, hopefully they don’t guard the outer parts very well and we can determine whether it’s safe to reveal ourselves to the beings before we’re seen.”

“I never was one for trusting that beings were benevolent anyway.” Natasha said as she checked the ammunition for her guns and the widow bites on her tactical suit.

“I am glad you feel the need to dress like this even when on what was supposed to be a safe and –going by the others, silly assignment.”

“Oh I bet you are.” Natasha said with a wink, “But try to keep it in your pants Hill, we have a job to do.”

As the convoy approached Natasha and Maria crept down closer to the road and managed to duck in behind the vehicles when the doors opened. As Maria expected there weren’t any aliens to be seen patrolling, instead there was a large collection of different vehicles in a large lot and there was a gated area leading to the inside of the base.

Maria and Natasha managed to get over the fence with ease, avoiding the scant guards patrolling the perimeter. Once inside they made their way towards the centre, taking care to avoid any sight or sounds of potential hostiles.

Maria kept checking in the empty rooms they found along the way while Natasha kept lookout, soon Maria found a room that contained maps of the planet, and nearby worlds and star charts.

“I don’t recognise anything on these star charts.” Maria said exasperated. “It’s as if they’re all completely made up, they don’t even follow what we thought to be the basic physics governing planetary system formations.”

“You know how to read them right?”

“Of course I know, I was the one who made sure Stark hadn’t tampered with our coordinates when we went to Triumph.”

Natasha left the door and came over to Maria’s side, glancing at the charts in her hand.

“These don’t look right.” Natasha said confused.

“That’s what I said.”

Natasha was looking through the other charts laid out on the desk when a surprised noise and shouting alerted her to the presence of native guards. Maria turned around slowly to see the alien guard looking panicked and waving a weapon at both of them.

Natasha moved slowly forwards, holding up her hands in a peaceful motion but as soon as the guard swung its weapon back towards Maria Natasha shot out and used one of her Widow bites to incapacitate the guard. The guard slumped to the floor and Natasha gathered up his weapon and quickly stepped over him, checking the corridor before beckoning for Maria to follow her.

“They already alerted the base.” Maria said looking at the flashing alarm and the sound of rapidly approaching beings.

“We just need to get out of this area and they won’t know where we are.”

“Except that we don’t know where we are either, or know the base.”

“I never said it wouldn’t be a challenge.” Natasha said raising an eyebrow at Maria in challenge.

Maria pushed Natasha out of the way as a group of guards entered the corridor suddenly and opened fire. Maria span round to go back the way they had come but the door was opening to reveal more guards, Natasha pulled Maria down an unexplored corridor and through a number of rooms attempting to put some distance between them and their pursuers. The guards didn’t seem to let up, there were enough of them that at every fork or multiple doors they could split up and still have enough guards to chase them.

“I guess that answers the question about whether they’re friendly.” Maria said as she leapt over the makeshift cover Natasha had made and clasped her ears as Natasha threw a grenade behind them.

“Well to be fair they did find two strangers in their base looking through their stuff.”

“Not helping Nat.” Maria said as she grabbed the redhead and pushed her along the corridor just before an explosion levelled where they had been sitting.

The two were up and moving again, Natasha was a blur of motion in front of her, checking the path ahead was clear of guards and ensuring the doors they moved through didn’t end in dead ends.

A blast to the leg has Maria stumbling but she’s running on pure adrenaline and somehow manages to get into the room and close the door. As soon as she is in the room her leg gives way and Natasha is by her side in seconds.

“Maria, hold on, you’re going to be fine.” Maria knows Natasha well enough by now to know when she’s lying, and she’s not even doing a very good job of it this time. 

Maria looks down at her mangled leg and looks back at Natasha’s worried face, she tries to smile to let the spy know that it’s okay, she knows that this is it, but all she manages is a painful stretching of the cuts and bruises already on her face and her vision starts to blur from the blood loss.

“Maria.” Natasha’s firm voice cuts through the fog surrounding her brain and Maria struggles to focus on the redhead. “Stay with me, Maria. There’s no way this little scratch is enough to down you so you just hang tight okay, we’ll get out of this. I’ll get you out of this.”

Maria tries to speak, to move but she feels the blackness closing in, her eyes are too heavy to keep open and she lets them fall shut for a moment only to feel Natasha’s firm grip clutch at her hand and hear the Russian pleading for her to hold on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied, one more chapter. Which will (hopefully) be up Tuesday.


	5. Back to Reality

Maria is brought abruptly round by harsh white light, at first she thinks she’s somehow managed to find her way to SHIELD and is in the medical bay, but then she takes note of her surroundings and sees a small room with Natasha who looks equally as confused as Maria must right now.

“And she’s finally up! You took longer than your friend here to come round and she went in for a final suicidal showdown to take vengeance for her lost love. It was very romantic. Completely stupid of course, you already knew that it was impossible when you volunteered to go into the den without your friend to, what did you say? ‘Buy them some time’? Still, it was very dramatic. We all had bets going to see how long you’d last.”

Maria looks at the man who is talking to her, he is dressed in overalls covered with a strange logo she can’t make out and he seems to be taking her out of some sort of machine.

“You’re still a little out of it I see, don’t worry, you’ll come back to reality soon.”

Maria looks over at Natasha who is eyeing the overalled man with distrust and seems to be working on how to get out of the large chair they are both strapped in, but they must have been drugged because the redhead doesn’t seem to be able to move her limbs very well. Maria tries to move her own limbs and panics when she can’t even get her fingers to twitch.

“Oh don’t worry about that.” The man said noticing her panic. “Give yourself a few moments you’ll be back right as rain. Your brain has been sending neural impulses to control your character in game for years now, you’re a bit out of it, it’ll take a while before you’re back in full control of yourselves.”

“What are you talking about?” Maria asks finally.

“The simulation of course.”

“Simulation?” Natasha asks warily.

“Sure, it was all a sim.”

“What was?” Maria asked, still struggling to follow what the man was saying.

“Everything. The Marvel simulation, there’s a huge waiting list; it’s our highest selling VR game.” He takes in their dumbstruck expressions. “Don’t worry, it hits everyone like that when they get out, your real memories will start returning soon.”

“So wait what part of our memories was a simulation?”

“The different world you crash landed on.”

Maria sighs in relief, “Ah okay, I think I have most of my real memories then-”

“And the SHIELD agency, superheroes, superspies, all the alien stuff-”

“Wait what?” Maria interrupts.

“No SHIELD?” Natasha asks slowly, her eyes thoughtful, as if she’s trying to find a memory of this new information.

“Of course not, I mean come on, the name SHIELD? Who even names a real organisation that?”

“So I’m not…” Natasha starts before being cut off by the technician.

“The Black Widow? Infamous super spy? Nah, who’d be that badass in real life? And you were Maria Hill weren’t you?” He said turning to face Maria. “Wow, you two have a type don’t you. Anyway, I’ve got you all out of your patch now. I’ll leave you here to collect yourselves, don’t take too long though we’ve got a new group in in twenty minutes. If you follow the signs through there you’ll find a recuperating room with your things in.”

Maria looks at Natasha in shock when they’re left alone in the room. Natasha has managed to regain control over her limbs, although she’s not as graceful as she usually is and she comes over to help Maria manoeuvre her limbs out of the chair.

“What kind of person willingly signs away years of their life to live vicariously through a simulation?” Maria says frustrated.

“Well let’s think about that.” Natasha says thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Well the kind of people who would want to do this, people who had to hide somewhere, people who had nothing to lose, people who-”

“So I’m either a criminal, lonely or desperate.” Maria says, cutting Natasha off.

“Not just criminals have to hide Maria.”

“My name’s not even Maria!” Maria complains before looking over at the redhead almost accusingly. “You’re taking this remarkably well.”

“Well only one of us can freak out about this at one time.” Natasha said. “Anyway, if I’m not the Black Widow I have all her knowledge of how she fights, how to survive, but without the…”

“Ah.” Maria said awkwardly, trying to make eye contact with Natasha but the redhead is purposefully avoiding her gaze by looking at a spread of leaflets. “Is that something you would have wanted? You know, back in… wherever we were, Marvel land.”

“I believe the simulation was called MCU.” Natasha said ignoring Maria’s question, staring at the pamphlet left near the seat. “Apparently there are a few Marvel games that aren’t interlinked, like an Exmen and something about Spiders; maybe my character is in there too?”

“Doubt it. There’s only one of you.” Maria says before thinking, but the slow smile she sees spreading across Natasha’s face more than makes up for the embarrassment she feels for letting her mouth run.

The two move into the next room once Maria can stand without losing her balance and Maria starts looking through the lockers along the wall.

“Our IDs are in here.” Maria said riffling through the personal items and tossing a bag holding Natasha’s to her. “I’m… Robin Scherbatsky.” Maria said frowning at her identification before sitting down heavily on the bench, holding her papers in her hand and staring at them unseeing. “I can’t believe it was all fake.”

“It’s okay Maria, we’ll get through this, we’ve got through worse.” Natasha said coming to sit by Maria and rubbing comforting circles on the brunette’s back.

“No we haven’t though. That was all a dream or a simulation, none of it was real. I’m an ex Canadian teenage popstar who worked in the news until for some reason I left everything and plugged myself into virtual reality.”

“Well I don’t even have a surname, it just says ‘Isserley’, I don’t know why I’m here either. Maybe I’m on the run because I was kidnapping hitchhikers and I made the mistake of kidnapping someone who would be missed.”

“Or you’re an alien and you’ve fled your overpopulated and dying homeworld to live on Earth.”

“Or both!” Natasha says smiling.

Maria sighs and leans against Natasha; the arm that was on her back winds itself around Maria’s waist and the redhead pulls Maria closer to her.

“Come on, let’s get out of this place hopefully we can find out more about our…selves.”

The two women left the building and started walking along the street outside, Natasha was trying to follow the directions that were written on the back of an old MCU virtual reality promotional poster that she had found in the package with her personal items. So when Maria noticed a vehicle drive down the road then drive down the same road a few seconds later without turning round she wasn’t sure whether to trust her own eyes or not.

“Did you see that?” Maria asked stopping suddenly, staring at the spot the car had vanished from and then reappeared at the start of the street.

“What?” Natasha said turning to face Maria.

“Like… a glitch in the matrix.” Maria noticed Natasha’s confused expression and added. “Déjà vu.”

“Well we have been in that simulation for a while, maybe the neurons in our eyes aren’t properly feeding back information yet?”

“Maybe.” Maria said sceptically, still staring at the spot the car vanished from.

“These directions make no sense; it’s almost as if the person who left them wanted us to walk in circles.” Natasha let out frustrated.

“That person was you.” Maria pointed out.

“I would never have made directions this bad.” Natasha said still frowning at the piece of paper in her hands.

“Let’s take a break and we can try and work out a plan.” Maria

“Where?” Maria gestured to a bar across the street and Natasha grinned at her. “Well if I had to discover I was from a different reality I’m glad I did it with someone who didn’t mind day drinking.”

“I think we’ve earned it.” Maria said as they entered the bar.

Maria moved to the counter as she was the only one who had any money, or an official ID with her belongings and got the two of them drinks. After she made her way back to the booth Natasha had found the two drank in companionable silence for a few moments until Natasha spoke.

“Have you noticed that the walls have SHIELD logos?”

“That guy said SHIELD didn’t exist, if everything was fake why would they have the logos?” Maria said thoughtfully.

“We should go back there, we can find out why we entered the game, or when we entered it at least.”

Maria nodded and the two quickly made their way back to the building and managed to enter without any trouble.

“You’d think they’d have security if this is so popular, what’s to stop anyone from breaking in and plugging themselves in?”

The building was eerily silent, much too quiet for Maria’s liking. Maria led Natasha through the building and they followed the signs in the employee sector for the records.

“This must be the place.” Maria said eyeing the multiple filing cabinets.

“Why can’t they use computers, it’s going to take us forever to search through all these.”

“Not necessarily, this section is recent gamers we’ll probably still be in there considering we only just got out.”

Natasha joined Maria at the door and examined the lock.

“They didn’t take their security too seriously did they; we just need to force the door while applying pressure to the locking mechanism and the lock will fold in on itself.” Natasha said, but she didn’t make any movement to do what she had just suggested.

Maria grabbed the lever and got ready to pull it once Natasha was ready but the redhead still hadn’t moved and was staring at the door with trepidation.

“Hey, whatever we find behind there it won’t change anything. Whoever we were before our experiences in that Sim have changed us, I know you Nat, we’re in this together.”

“You don’t know the real me though.” Natasha said doubtfully, her hand still not touching the door.

“Sure I do, just because our time in that virtual reality thing wasn’t physically happening doesn’t make it any less real to us. You’re not getting rid of me this easy Romanoff.” Maria said, watching Natasha’s mouth quirk in a half smile before she moved purposefully towards the lock.

“Okay, go.” Natasha said taking a deep breath.

The door opened as easily as Natasha had predicted but there was nothing inside except a small computer monitor that flickered to life as the two approached, showing ScreeWee.

“I supposed I should be pleased you passed.” The image of the lizard said. “But I do wish this didn’t end like this. Congratulations. I will send over the documents confirming your new marital status.”

Maria turned to look at Natasha who was staring at the blank video recording with unreadable eyes.

“You’re as shocked as me I take it?” Maria asked.

“What? Oh, the simulation…”

Maria stared at Natasha but the redhead didn’t say anything further, Maria didn’t blame her, they had both been dealt a huge shock. The walls around them slowly faded out and whatever Tony had used to create the hallucination, or simulation, vanished leaving the two of them standing in the room they started in.

Natasha looks at Maria searchingly but the redhead must not find whatever she was looking for because before Maria can say anything Natasha turns and leaves.

* * *

A few days later Maria receives the confirmation of the dissolution of their marriage through and she goes off in search of Natasha. She finds the redhead angrily punching one of Cap's punch bags. The extra durable kind. She's already split a seam and one patch is threadbare. Maria watches the scene before her and notices the Black Widow’s mask has slipped enough that Maria can see the anger in her eyes, anger that she’s channelling into the abused punching bag.

Maria knows that Natasha knows she’s there, but the spy is choosing to ignore her and lands a brutal kick to the punch bag immediately followed by a flurry of powerful jabs.

“Hey Nat.”

“Hill.” Natasha answers shortly, still focused on the bag in front of her.

“I got the confirmation from ScreeWee. We’re officially single again.”

“That’s great.” Natasha manages to grit out amongst a few heavy punches to the bag.

The redhead stops to catch her breath, still concentrating on the punch bag and avoiding looking at Maria, and Maria notices the sweat running down the redhead’s exposed arms and torso. Maria has never seen her like this before, even when sparring multiple partners the Black Widow is full of controlled power and grace, never allowing the fights to get into territory where she’s not completely in control.

“That last task was really something huh?” Maria says, rolling her eyes at her own dumb attempt at conversation.

Natasha turns from the punching bag finally and looks at Maria levelly. Maria is stunned by the emotion she sees clouding those usually clear green eyes, by the distance Natasha has put between them that was absent before now.

“I guess all that talk about us being ‘in it together’ was just because you thought you were going to be stuck in a strange world with only me remembering who you were.” Natasha said bitterly.

“Natasha no,” Maria said moving closer to the redhead who backed away.

“Leave it Hill, I thought… it doesn’t matter what I thought. We’ve done what you wanted, there’s no need for you to be here.”

“Nat, I wanted to talk to you about, well about not just this whole thing. While we’ve been doing these tasks I’ve had feelings… I didn’t realise what they were at the time but-”

“Just spit it out Hill.” Natasha said wearily, cutting off Maria’s rambling.

"Now that this is all over… and we're divorced.” Maria said wryly. “I have a question for you.” Maria asks watching Natasha carefully. “Will you go on a date with me?"

Natasha stares at Maria shocked, then a slow smile graces her features, brightening the darkness Maria saw in her eyes.

“Yet you still made us jump through all these ridiculous hoops to get divorced?”

“Of course, I couldn’t let our relationship be defined by a drunken night neither of us remembered. If I married you I don’t want it to be dependent on flower crowns and alien hallucinogenic beer.”

“You’ve been thinking about marrying me?” Natasha asked grinning, her eyes dancing as they met Maria’s.

“Oh shut up.” Maria said rolling her eyes, if you thi-”

But Maria was quickly quietened by Natasha who pulled the brunette into a passionate embrace and kissed her until she forgot what she had been going to say.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While Maria and Natasha were in the ‘simulation’ or… when they thought they were out of the simulation the backstory I gave Natasha is based on a film Scarlett was in, however I’ve not seen the film only read the book so if it’s not actually similar to the film that’s why. 
> 
> I had vague ideas of what each ‘task’ should be, increasing in vagueness as they went on with this one just saying the episode of the show I borrowed the idea from. Which is why it took longer than the others to put up and may not actually make sense? This was all meant to be a funny idea 2 or 3 thousand words long but it kind of got away from me.


End file.
